china's state owned oil giant c-nook swooped in to acquire nexen for a cool $15 billion. note to the obama administration, it is not happening in a bubble. last year you'll recall the obama administration put off a decision on the excel pipeline, an extension of a pipeline that would connect the oil in alberta to the gulf of mexico and international markets. the democrats killed it because of concerns from environmentalists. the proposed route crossed the aquifer in nebraska and white house and state department officials could have just insisted on rerouting the pipe, but they didn't. a bad move, one that was highly thought to play to the president's base. now that the elections are over, a review of a new route will begin sometime next year. the leakages of that pipe were a minor concern, though it got all the headlines. a more legitimate environmental concern is carbon emissions. processing crude that is mined from the oil sands emits double the emissions of regular drilled oil. but oil sands still -- that still scarce, oil is still scarce, the chinese lead lots of it,